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blowfish posted:A time machine to funnel fat stacks of cash into fusion research ca. 1975. Commercial deployment of fusion tech will be subject to many of the challenges faced by fission plants: high capital costs, arduous permitting and inspections processes, infeasibility of private-sector insurance coverage, management+disposal of radioactive wastes, and nuclear weapons proliferation risk. It would enjoy a political and popular-opinion advantage over fission power, but public sentiment could always turn against it (due to cronyism in the allotment of research grants, public-financed plants going badly overbudget, tritium leaks at research facilities, persistent inability to achieve breakeven after spending hundreds of billions of taxpayers dollars, or whatever). I doubt that the first-generation commercial plants would be cost-competitive with natgas, unless your time machine can somehow convince Congress to pass a carbon tax. So... what do we acually gain by accelerating fusion research in this hypothetical scenario? Aside from nerdboners. Also - please remember that people are stupid. The Sierra Club has been pre-emptively opposed to fusion power since 1986.
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Nov 8, 2015 19:06
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:59 |
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